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13 June 19. Congress wants to create ‘cyber first responders.’ House lawmakers passed a bill June 10 that would require the establishment of permanent “cyber incident teams” to help protect both federal agencies and the private sector from cyberattacks. The Department of Homeland Security Cyber Incident Response Teams Act would create permanent teams of cybersecurity specialists within DHS that the government and industry could call on to help them recover from network breaches.
“When cyberattacks occur, immediate expertise is needed to mitigate damage and ensure organizations are restored,” the bill’s primary sponsor Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. “Cyber incident response teams provide that expertise and function as our cyber first responders.”
The teams, which will be housed under the DHS’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, could also include cybersecurity experts from the private sector as members.
McCaul said the bill fosters “collaboration between the public and private sector to ensure that our nation can continue to adapt to the constant changes in the cyber landscape.”
Reps. John Katko, R-N.Y.; Jim Langevin, D-R.I.; John Ratcliffe, R-Texas; and Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., also sponsored the bill.
The House bill was introduced in February as companion legislature to the bipartisan DHS Cyber Hunt and Incident Response Teams Act introduced by Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
The Senate version of the bill was approved by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in April. (Source: Defense News)
13 June 19. Harris Corporation Awarded a Second LRIP Order on US Army’s HMS Manpack IDIQ Contract. Highlights:
- Continues delivery of HMS Manpack radios to U.S. Army
- Provides new multi-channel capabilities for the battlefield, including wideband networking
- Software-defined architecture provides increased flexibility to meet differing mission requirements
Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has been awarded a second low-rate initial production (LRIP) order by the U.S. Army under the HMS (Handheld, Manpack & Small Form-Fit) IDIQ contract to bring flexible and highly capable AN/PRC-158 multi-channel radios to the battlefield.
The Harris AN/PRC-158 radio features a two-channel, software-defined architecture with integrated cross-banding between waveforms, including TSM, SRW, SINCGARS, SATCOM and others, providing new advanced capabilities while maintaining backward interoperability with legacy radios. The software-defined architecture enables flexibility to respond to new and emerging requirements and allows easy porting of new waveforms. The radio is capable of simultaneously handling classified and unclassified data.
“The Army’s new network modernization strategy and Integrated Tactical Network (ITN) is designed to enable ‘fighting tonight,’ while seeking next-generation solutions to stay ahead of potential adversaries. Harris is committed to delivering the next generation of adaptable, software-defined radios that are software upgradeable to meet the Army’s evolving network requirements,” said Dana Mehnert, president, Harris Communication Systems. “The AN/PRC-158 delivers the security, interoperability and resilience the Army needs for its tactical radio modernization program while providing unmatched capability for soldiers on the battlefield.”
This is the second LRIP for Harris after an initial successful LRIP on this contract to supply HMS Manpack radios and will be followed by Operational Testing as part of the fielding process. The IDIQ contract includes a five-year base and an additional five-year option with a ceiling of $12.7bn. The Army expects to purchase approximately 65,000 HMS Manpack radios under the IDIQ.
13 June 19. Persistent Systems, LLC (“Persistent”) announced today that it will be supplying its Wave Relay® mobile ad hoc networking technology to the QinetiQ North America (“QNA”) team chosen for the U.S. Army’s Common Robotic System-Individual (CRS(I)) program of record. CRS(I) is a backpackable robot, less than 25 pounds, that dismount users can carry with sensor suites for viewing and detecting threats, providing greater situational awareness in the field. Last month, QNA won the Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, valued at up to $164m. And the company has already begun placing Low Rate Initial Production orders for Persistent’s Wave Relay®-enabling Embedded Module, which will be fitted into each new ground robot.
“We’re excited to, once again, deliver the Wave Relay® MANET to the U.S. Army and help lead the drive towards networking the battlefield,” said Leslie Hulser, Director of Programs for Persistent. “We are also very proud of our partnership with QinetiQ and congratulate them on this award.”
QNA was one of the first members of the Wave Relay® Ecosystem, an industry alliance of unmanned system and sensor companies putting their platforms on a common Wave Relay network—with the ultimate goal of giving the warfighter easy access to every unmanned vehicle, sensor and camera.
The Persistent Systems Embedded Module form-factor is QNA’s MANET radio of choice for CRS(I), providing secure, long-range data communication for the small ground robots.
13 June 19. Airbus has successfully completed a flight demonstration of a connected airborne battlespace scenario, centred on a MRTT aircraft. The test was carried out as part of the development of Airbus’ Network for the Sky (NFTS) programme. This follows on from last August’s demonstration in Canada of secure mobile communications using a stratospheric balloon to simulate a HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo Satellite), such as Airbus’ Zephyr UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).
NFTS combines various technologies – satellite and ground communications, air-to-ground, ground-to-air and air-to-air tactical links, 5G mobile communications and laser connections – in a resilient, unified, secure, highly interoperable, mesh network. Aircraft, UAVs and helicopters currently use networks with limited bandwidth and interoperability, and often little resilience. NFTS will allow them to form an integral part of high-speed military networks.
“This unique demonstration is a significant milestone in realising our vision of secure connectivity, which will enable the future air combat cloud and enhance real time execution of military missions,” said Evert Dudok, Head of Communications, Intelligence & Security at Airbus Defence and Space.
The demonstration scenario simulates the establishment of multi-Mbit/s, wideband communication links between ground forces operatives, a fighter jet, a MRTT, and a combined air operations centre (CAOC) on the ground. Both the operatives and jet fighter had to send video in real time to provide enhanced real-time situational awareness and receive instructions from the CAOC in return.
The operative located in Getafe (Spain) was equipped with a standard handheld radio for NATO forces (ROVER). The fighter was deployed to obtain imagery of the area of interest and act as a communications node between the operative and the MRTT flying at 30,000 feet within a 150 km radius in secure airspace. Communications were thus relayed between the fighter jet and the MRTT, via a wideband LOS (line-of-sight) data link. The MRTT then routed the video along with its own communications via a wideband satellite link to a space teleport near Washington, D.C. The communications flow was then returned to Europe via a terrestrial link to the CAOC.
This complex scenario demonstrates the real-time operation of secure end-to-end communications across different networks and technologies: ground-air tactical link, air-air wideband link between two aircrafts, air-satellite relay and terrestrial networks. This type of configuration, known as a ‘hybrid network’, represents the future of military communications and meets the needs of armed forces to be able to use a wide range of networks while allowing these to be managed dynamically and transparently. The solutions developed by Airbus thus allow secure IP (Internet Protocol) communications to be established, links to be reconfigured in real time and the available bandwidth to be allocated to data links based on operational priorities.
For this demonstration an MRTT aircraft has been equipped with Janus, Airbus’ new tri-band (Ku-Ka-MilKa) satellite antenna, as well as the latest version of the Proteus satellite modem, which is highly resilient against interference and jamming, and Airbus’ aircraft links integration management system (ALIMS).
This exercise paves the way for the development of the core capability for SMART MRTT connectivity, which will allow the MRTT to act as a high-end communication node. Network for the Sky (NFTS) sets the foundation for the connected airborne battlespace, with the objective to offer a full operational capability by 2020. The NFTS programme is part of Airbus’ Future Air Power project and is fully aligned with the development of the European Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
12 June 19. The next frontier of military communications. Communication technology is evolving rapidly, changing the way military forces communicate but also creating new threats. We explore the latest developments in military communications networks and technology. The global tactical military communications market, which comprises airborne, naval, man-portable, vehicular and stationary, is set to see substantial growth over the coming decade. According to market analysis by GlobalData says, by the end of 2028, the sector will be worth $151bn globally. This growth is driven largely by demand for man-portable innovations, which account for more than a third of the market (38%).
The modernisation of man-portable communications systems in particular has long been on the wish lists of armies relying on traditional radio in the field. The US Army, for instance, has been looking to modernise its tactical military communications infrastructure for more than 20 years, starting with the joint tactical radio system (JTRS) in 1997.
“The basic idea was to field a family of radios and waveforms that could be modified by downloading new software rather than replacing expensive hardware,” Loren Thompson, chief executive officer of Source Associates and chief operating officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute wrote for Forbes in 2018. “Software reconfigurability supposedly would enable a patchwork of disparate networks to communicate as if everyone was using an iPhone, even in the midst of combat.”
What if everyone was using an iPhone, though? Experience with smartphones in the military has shown that they can compromise security through features such as geo-location services, which is why the US Army has reportedly prohibited its service personnel from using those services in operational environments.
Smartphones can pose significant security risks for an individual, a squadron and ultimately an operation in a military setting, but they haven’t been written off altogether. As Thompson wrote in Forbes, “when it comes to communicating on the battlefields of tomorrow … everybody in the army seems to agree on what they would like. It’s an iPhone.”
Warfighter Information Network Tactical: the tactical network backbone
While a future military communications network of battlefield-secure smartphones may yet be out of reach, the US Army’s Warfighter Information Network Tactical programme (WIN-T) is the army’s current “tactical network backbone”, according to manufacturer General Dynamics. It offers soldiers secure voice and data communications on the battlefield without the need for fixed infrastructure.
First deployed in Iraq in 2004, WIN-T meant soldiers “had a high-speed, interoperable voice and data communications network at the battalion level”, General Dynamics says. It offered soldiers the ability to stream real-time video, view a topographical map of friendly forces, send texts requesting medical assistance, digitally call for artillery support, and access mission command apps like command post of the future and tactical ground reporting system.
The apps meant soldiers could personalise what they were using to achieve their operational objectives. They use the likes of Google Earth, and drag and drop functions to share data with colleagues on the ground and back at command.
Integrating 5G into the defence infrastructure
Meanwhile, the introduction of 5G networks is gathering pace, opening up a new era of possibilities – and threats – for military communications.
Like the roads and skies of the world, communication channels are increasingly populated. Although 5G is the next generation of mobile communications intended to address that, it also means there will be more capacity and therefore greater demand.
While 5Gt offers potential unlike anything before it within the military domain, undoubtedly the biggest single threat it brings is jamming and signal interception. Man-portable radio is set to be the stand-out beneficiary, with the prospect of communications even in the world’s hardest-to-reach environments with the expanded and enhanced spectrum it boasts. However, with increased capability and capacity comes the obvious test: will it be possible for the military to utilise the network to its full potential given the growing data appetite of the commercial sector? That remains to be seen.
The data war
The battle for data supremacy has already gained pace, with the South China Morning Post recently suggesting the roll-out of 5G could revolutionise military communications, “raising the stakes between those developing the technology”, and ultimately change the warfare and cybersecurity landscape.
Recent legal action taken by the US against one of China’s biggest mobile communications and tech companies, Huawei, and concerns in Europe of the company’s influence prove the growing importance of communications in today’s increasingly technologically advanced climate.
It seems that, since the days of the Iraqi insurgency and Afghanistan conflict, the attention of the world’s militaries and those leading them is shifting back to the more conventional image of war – state on state conflict. Command and control has arguably never been more important, or challenging. Communications has always been the defining factor of conflict, but never more so than today. How countries respond to that challenge will be the determining factor in global influence. (Source: army-technology.com)
12 June 19. Russia Develops New Jamming Method. Russia’s Central Military District developed and tested a new method of jamming enemy aircraft using three different types of ground-based electronic counter-measures systems. The new method allows electronic warfare specialists to create “vacuum” space shielded from the impacts of drones, airborne radars, radio-controlled high-explosive munitions and cruise missiles, according to a statement released by the district’s press office.
“The experiment involved unmanned aerial vehicles, communications systems, dummy munitions and aircraft,” the press office was cited by TASS as saying.
The servicemen used the Borisoglebsk [electronic counter-measures] system to conduct radio-electronic reconnaissance. By penetrating the channels of communications systems’ control, they created interference in the operation of ground and airborne radio communications employed by a notional enemy.
The teams of the Krasukha [electronic counter-measures] system suppressed the signal of an onboard radar installed on an aircraft and also the radio channels of controlling unmanned aerial vehicles. The activation of the Zhitel hardware made it possible to shut out satellite communications equipment, navigation and cellular communications systems within a radius of 30km. (Source: UAS VISION/Defense World)
11 June 19. Applied Insight Launches Groundbreaking Altitude Platform to Help Government Transform Cloud Management at Scale. Applied Insight, a market leader in solving complex technology challenges for federal government customers, backed by The Acacia Group, announced today the launch of Altitude, a groundbreaking automated and scalable platform-as-a-service cloud technology. This proprietary innovation transforms cloud management by enabling organizations to exploit the full power of the cloud while achieving total control, compliance and visibility over their cloud environments as they grow.
“Working with confidence at scale in the cloud is a widespread challenge across the federal government,” said Dede Dascalu, chief technology officer of Applied Insight. “The need for robust control and compliance often conflicts with the computing power and agility that the cloud brings. Altitude finally solves that problem by combining scalable cloud management and governance technologies. It has already been proven in some of the most demanding mission environments, achieving outstanding results for customers in the national security community.”
Altitude supports complex missions of any scale. It is swift to deploy and can work with multiple cloud service providers. The comprehensive nature of the Altitude offering enables organizations across the maturity spectrum of their cloud adoption strategies. Altitude is being offered as a managed service, and can be adapted to fit, flex and grow to meet the specific demands of any agency cloud environment.
Removing major barriers to effective cloud adoption, combining agility with control, Altitude provides full visibility across disparate networks, enabling customers to understand what’s in their cloud ecosystems. It delivers a quality user experience with native access to the CSP console, command line and API keys, high-speed virtual access to the full range of cloud resources, and the ability to collaborate across teams within a highly secure environment. This is in stark contrast to “cloud broker” solutions that often result in major delays between the need for resources and their availability to users, lack scalability, and ultimately become long-term roadblocks to cloud adoption. The technology also enforces customer-defined governance to ensure budget and regulatory compliance.
Altitude is already proving to be an effective cloud management solution for the intelligence and defense communities, where governance and security are paramount. Current Altitude deployments are enabling thousands of government and industry users to work effectively and efficiently within customer compliance and security boundaries, without inhibiting the power, speed and scalability of the cloud.
The innovation is the product of work conducted at aiLabs, Applied Insight’s dedicated internal R&D program. “The mission of aiLabs is to apply our command of technology and mission understanding to the job of solving real customer problems at pace,” said John Hynes, AI CEO. “Altitude is a perfect example of that approach, drawing heavily on our experience of working with customers to overcome their concerns about large-scale cloud adoption. We’re delighted with the results we’ve achieved for existing users of Altitude, and excited by the potential of bringing this groundbreaking solution to new federal customers.”
The core components of Altitude include secure VDI access to the cloud environment, a suite of shared services accessible by all cloud tenants, central log aggregation and security event analysis, cloud resource interconnectivity, and infrastructure management capabilities. Used together, the components enable users to perform complex tasks with secure access to their cloud resources.
Building on deployments of Altitude, AI can leverage a growing library of orchestration and automation techniques to continually reduce the cost of implementing and maintaining the Altitude platform. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
11 June 19. Cubic wins USAF contract to develop SFF radio prototype. Cubic Mission Solutions (CMS) has received an order from the US Air Force (USAF) to develop and demonstrate a Small Form Factor (SFF) Radio prototype for the Data Link Enterprise (DLE). The system comprises one ground and one air component to enable ground-to-air and air-to-ground real-time communications. Cubic’s solution is a lightweight, airborne and ground radio system. It is capable of delivering SFF capability in a compact tactical radio prototype. It will offer several standard waveforms and an internally developed, protected waveform known as ‘Boomslang’.
Cubic Mission Solutions president Mike Twyman said: “We are very pleased to have been competitively selected by the USAF to develop and demonstrate our cutting-edge small form factor radio solution for the DLE.
“Our system design is based on proven and mature technologies, which we have implemented for a number of successful Department of Defense programmes. We look forward to leveraging our expertise to provide the lowest risk and most capable solution for the DLE.”
The architecture implemented for the company’s SFF technical approach is designed to optimise the functionality and performance of the system.
In addition, the architecture helps minimise the system’s size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) for both the ground and airborne systems.
The solution is modular, scalable and affordable featuring plug and play, open standard interfaces.
Cubic Mission Solutions programme director James Parys said: “With decades of experience in developing systems for airborne and ground platforms, we are able to deliver a cost-effective solution, leveraging enhanced off-the-shelf technologies to build a prototype that will be ready for fielding in future follow on efforts.”
CMS is a subsidiary of Cubic, a US-based provider of systems and services to the transportation and defence markets worldwide. (Source: airforce-technology.com)
07 June 19. Brazilian marines close to fully implementing new C4ISR system. The Brazilian Marine Corps (Corpo de Fuzileiros Navais) is implementing its ambitious C4ISR system, the SIC2CFN (Sistema Integrado de Comando e Controle para o CFN), which was purchased from Elbit Systems via a USD40m contract on 31 March 2017. The Marines Material Command is responsible for the system and received initial components in August 2018. It is seeking full implementation by October 2019. The system, designed to have a scalable and modular architecture for future growth, is intended to provide marines with real-time battlefield situational awareness over a range of scenarios, including low- and high-intensity conflicts, peace support operations, and humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
08 June 19. The US Army wants a singular focus, not one-off solutions. The days of one-off solutions for providing situational awareness and command-and-control information in the Army could be numbered.
“We are on the verge of putting tactical common operating environment capability into the Army organization in the very near term,” Col. Troy Crosby, project manager for mission command at Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, said June 6 at the C4ISRNET Conference in Arlington, Virginia.
The Army is getting ready to field the first set of capabilities under a new modernized network architecture in 2021, which will include the first iteration of the Command Post Computing Environment (CP CE).
CP CE is a web-enabled system that will consolidate current mission systems and programs into a single user interface.
Crosby said CP CE is on the verge of receiving a critical decision from the Army this month as to whether or not it has passed all of its tests and can be used by soldiers in combat.
The Army has been trying to incorporate a DevOps process for CP CE using a variety of units to experiment with the capability that can provide direct feedback on the system to the program office. However, one of the key lessons they learned, according to Crosby, was they used too many test units: six in total.
“With that many partners trying to do all the exercises that those different level echelon commands and organizations wanted to do, that piece became untenable,” he said. “I think at least for our portfolio, somewhere around three is a much better level.”
Similarly, Crosby noted that the difficulty with mission command is each commander has their own way of performing it. As the Army was trying to come up with a common solution for all units with CP CE, they had to make sure they tailored the capability for the Army rather than an individual commander they received feedback from during the developmental process. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
09 June 19. How industry can build better AI for the military. As AI becomes more prominent in the national security community, officials are grappling with where to use it most effectively. During a panel discussion at the C4ISRNET conference June 6, leaders discussed the role of industry building AI that will be used by the military. After studying small and big companies creating AI technology, Col. Stoney Trent, the chief of operations at the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said he found commercial groups do not have the same motivations that exist in the government.
“Commercial groups are poorly incentivized for rigorous testing. For them that represents a business risk,” Trent said. Because of this, he the government needs to work with the commercial sector to create these technologies.
“What the Defense Department has to offer in this space is encouragement, an incentive structure for better testing tools and methods that allows us to understand how a product is going to perform when we are under conditions of national consequence because I can’t wait,” Trent said. “Hopefully, the nation will be at peace long enough to not have a high bandwidth of experiences with weapons implementations, but when that happens, we need them to absolutely work. That’s a quality of commercial technology development.”
For this to take place, the Department of Defense needs to help create the right environment.
“All of this is predicated on the Pentagon doing things as well,” said Kara Frederick, associate fellow for the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security. “Making an environment conducive to the behaviors that you are seeking to encourage. That environment can be the IT environment, common standards for data processing, common standards for interactions with industry, I think would help.”
Panelists said national security leaders also need to weigh the risks of relying more on AI technology, one of which is non-state actors using AI for nefarious purposes. Trent said he sees AI as the new arms race but noted that in this arena, destruction may be easier than creation.
“AI is the modern-day armor anti-armor arms race,” Trent said. “The Joint AI Center, one of the important features of it is that it does offer convergence for best practices, data sources, data standards, etc. The flip side is we fully understand there are a variety of ways you can undermine artificial intelligence and most of those are actually easier than developing good resilient AI.”
Frederick said part of this problem stems from the structure of the AI community.
“I think what’s so singular about the AI community, especially the AI research community, is that it’s so open,” Frederick said. “Even at Facebook, we open source some of these algorithms and we put it our there for people to manipulate. [There is this] idea that non-state actors, especially those without strategic intent or ones that we can’t pin strategic intent to, could get a hold of some of these ways to code in certain malicious inputs [and] we need to start being serious about it.”
However, before tackling any of these problems, leaders need to first decide when it is appropriate to use AI
Rob Monto, lead of the Army’s Advanced Concepts and Experimentation office, described this process as an evolution that takes place between AI and its users.
“AI is like electricity,” he said. “It can be anywhere and everywhere. You can either get electrocuted by it or you target specific applications for it. You need to know what you want the AI to do, and then you spend months and years building out. If you don’t have your data set available, you do that upfront architecture and collection of information. Then you train your algorithms and build that specifically to support that specific use case…AI is for targeted applications to aid decisions, at least in the military space, to aid the user.”
Once the decision is made how and where to use AI, there are other technologies that must make advances to meet AI. One the biggest challenges, said Chad Hutchinson, director of engineering at the Crystal Group., is the question of hardware and characteristics such as thermal performance.
“AI itself is pushing the boundaries of what the hardware can do,” Hutchinson said.
Hardware technology is not the only obstacle in AI’s path. These issues could stem from policy or human resource shortfalls.
“What we find is the non-technology barriers are far more significant than the technology barriers,” Trent said. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
08 June 19. Is electronic warfare already legacy technology? Electronic warfare is often held up as a core category of modern warfare — technology that has the potential to transform battlefield operations. But if you ask William Conley, director of electronic warfare in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the military will soon be moving on.
“Electronic warfare has a legacy connotation,” he said in an interview following his keynote speech at the C4ISRNET Conference held in Arlington, Virginia, June 6. He defined EW as the actions taken through electronic attack, or jamming, as well as the EW support sensing, or the anti-jam electronic protection.
Where the U.S. military is heading in what Conley described as “a multifunction world” is driven by software-defined radios that enable a wide variety of functions through a single device. That places great emphasis on electromagnetic spectrum operations, or EMSO, and a new challenge to overcome: “How do we do all those things dynamically through a finite number of apertures, but also how do we battle manage all of these things happening in the electromagnetic spectrum today?”
EMSO, which involves multiple services operating together to exploit or manage the electromagnetic operational environment, is a newer concept — the next, more complex phase of EW development. But beyond the technical capabilities, Conley points to the need for a widespread shift in approach on the battlefield.
It’s a process.
“Doctrinally, we’re making progress. On the strategy side, we’re making progress. We’re there for fielding of capabilities, [with] some systems based upon that multifunction future,” Conley said. He specifically pointed to the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool as promising — it’s a command-and-control planning capability that allows commanders and soldiers to visualize on a screen the effects of electronic warfare in the field.
But for EMSO to gain traction, military leadership will need to train operators and commanders “to make use of these new and different ways to understand their operational environment, the command relationships they have, and the things they can control,” Conley said.
The president’s fiscal 2020 budget request includes annual investment in EW capabilities of about $5bn – $6bn, based upon specific research and development and prototyping efforts. The total spend is actually far higher, Conley added, when you consider the EW packages integrated into existing platforms are difficult to pinpoint. The F-35 is one obvious example.
Current investments are driven now by great power competition, particularly as Russia continues to develop EW capabilities and showcase those capabilities in Syria and elsewhere.
“The technology matured through the ‘90s, and became something that is possible in the last two decades,” Conley said. “But now, as we look at the great power competition, that changes how we need to dynamically maneuver and the density of units we need to maneuver with.”
“Our way of war assumes a level of spectrum access to allow us to fight in the way we desire,” he continued. “Anyone who closely studies the United States sees that ability to deny those links — sensing, seekers — as a potential way to challenge us. But there’s a question, which is, does EW, EMSO, favor the offense or the defense? It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the next decade or two.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
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Spectra Group Plc
Spectra has a proven record of accomplishment – with over 15 years of experience in delivering secure communications and cybersecurity solutions for governments around the globe; elite militaries; and private enterprises of all sizes.
As a dynamic, agile, security accredited organisation, Spectra can leverage this experience to deliver Cyber Advisory and secure Hosted and Managed Solutions on time, to spec and on budget, ensuring compliance with industry standards and best practices.
Spectra’s SlingShot® is a unique low SWaP system that enables in-service U/VHF tactical radios to utilise Inmarsat’s commercial satellite network for BLOS COTM. Including omnidirectional antenna for the man, vehicle, maritime and aviation platforms, the tactical net can broadcast over 1000s miles between forward units and a rear HQ, no matter how or where the deployment. Unlike many BLOS options, SlingShot maintains full COTM (Communications On The Move) capability and low size and weight
On 23 November 2017, Spectra Group (UK) Ltd announced that it had recently been listed as a Top 100 Government SME Supplier for 2015-2016 by the UK Crown Commercial Services
Spectra’s CEO, Simon Davies, was awarded 2017 BATTLESPACE Businessman of the Year by BATTLESPACE magazine and is a finalist in the inaugural British Ex-Forces In Business Awards in the Innovator Of The Year category.
Founded in 2002, the Company is based in Hereford, UK and holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
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